/** 
 * UIMA Annotation Mapper
 * Copyright (C) 2010  Nicolas Hernandez
 * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
 * or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
 * distributed with this work for additional information
 * regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
 * to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
 * "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
 * with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
 *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
 * software distributed under the License is distributed on an
 * "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
 * KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
 * specific language governing permissions and limitations
 * under the License.
 */
package fr.univnantes.lina.uima.mapper.annotation.located;

import org.apache.uima.jcas.tcas.Annotation;

/**
 * Compare annotations
 * 
 * @author hernandez
 *
 */
public interface AnnotationComparable_Interface {

	/**
	 * Offset comparator
	 * @param a1
	 * @param a2
	 * @return true if the respective offsets are similar
	 */
	public boolean equalsSameOffsets (Annotation a1, Annotation a2);

	/**
	 * Equals the same object or the same type, attribute and values ?
 	 * http://java.developpez.com/faq/java/?page=divers#DIVERS_equals
	 * @param a1
	 * @param a2
	 * @return
	 */
	public boolean equals (Annotation a1, Annotation a2);
}
